


every day waiting for you

by SailorChibi



Series: stuckony sentinel-guide [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Bonding, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guide Tony Stark, Hand wavy science, Hugging, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, SO MUCH hand wavy science, Sentinel AU, Sentinel Senses, Sentinel Steve Rogers, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Spirit Animals, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Triad bonds, and came out 70 years later, he fell into the ice with steve, sentinel bucky barnes, tony was alive for project rebirth, zones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 06:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6842383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark was there the day that Project Rebirth turned sentinel Steve Rogers into the spitting image of a Real Sentinel. He was there the day Steve fell into the ice.</p><p>He's there the day the Winter Soldier - sentinel Bucky Barnes, the missing piece to this weird triad bond - attacks them all, because Tony's the one who gets fed up with it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every day waiting for you

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not sure where this story came from. I feel like I had an explanation and now I don't, so... I don't know what to tell you. 
> 
> (That's a lie, it was all _that_ movie's fault.)

Money and the family name have always opened up doors, but there's never been as big of an impact as the day that a shy, skinny, frail sentinel sticks a hand into Tony's face and says, "Steve Rogers."

"Stark. Anthony Stark," Tony says, looking down into big blue eyes. He can see the moment that Rogers registers the gold flecks in his eyes and realizes what they mean, and he waits for Rogers to pull his hand back - but he doesn't, just stubbornly holds it there, and finally Tony takes it. He's not expecting the little shiver that runs up his spine and definitely not expecting it to die off before it hits his brain; a bond not fully formed, not quite, but almost. From the frown on Rogers's face, the same thing has happened to him.

"This is Howard's younger brother," Peggy says, and suddenly Tony realizes they're just standing there holding hands, and he lets go quickly. He pastes on a forced smile.

"That's me. I just came to see how Project Rebirth goes." As though he hasn't helped Howard with the calculations. As though this isn't Tony's work too. As though he doesn't have just as much - or more of - a desire to see this through. 

"Good to meet you," says Rogers, eyes intent, and then he's being lead away. Tony touches his hands together - his palm is still tingling - and doubles back to re-check Howard's notes. 

Rogers screams a lot. The agony radiating off of him batters at Tony's shields, and it takes everything he has to remain standing. He feels nauseous and shaky when it's over, even though Rogers is fine - confused as hell, but fine. Then there are gunshots and Dr. Erskine goes down in a pool of blood, and Tony finds himself on his knees beside the good doctor watching as the light fades out of his eyes. 

He fully expects to be sent back home after that, but Howard's never cared one way or the other and with Dr. Erskine dead, no one else does either. So Tony accompanies his brother to the frontlines, and he's always been good at keeping his head down, eyes shaded. He estimates that less than 20% of the camp even realizes that he's a guide, and he makes it a point to keep distance between him and everyone else, but he never feels the draw to another sentinel like he felt that day with Rogers. He tells himself, in the midst of Howard's workshop with grease on his hands and hot metal on his tongue, that's a good thing.

It's actually a little boring, and he's restless waiting for _something_ to happen. No, not something, for the _one thing_ , the _Thing_ , and it's coming. 

But it doesn't happen like Tony expects. Rogers shows up in that stupid costume that makes him look even more attractive, and Tony might flirt with him a few times because all Rogers does is look at him and grin playfully, and the next thing Tony knows they're flying an airplane behind enemy lines to rescue some men. Rogers is tense to bursting, shoulders squared, eyes flashing red - and right after he jumps, Tony sits back and swears loud.

"What?" Peggy yells.

"Nothing!" Tony yells back, but he's a guide and Rogers is a sentinel and he knows the fucking signs because his nose has been rubbed in them since the day he was born. And he's not Rogers's guide, but he's the only one with a chance in hell of keeping the man from falling into a zone. He puts the plane on autopilot, grabs the communicator Rogers left behind and the stupid parachute, and jumps out after him.

To say that Rogers isn't happy is an understatement. He gets up in Tony's face and yells. A lot. But Tony's used to that, and he puts a hand on Rogers's bare neck. A light hand, but it's enough for him to gather the shivering energy around Rogers and soothe it. Stroke it, the way you would a kitten. Rogers blinks, breathes out, suddenly a lot less tense. Not relaxed, but battle-ready in a way he wasn't before. Tony gives him a hard look, rolls his eyes, and jerks a thumb towards the camp. 

"Let's go," he mouths.

"We are finishing this conversation later," Rogers hisses back. He takes off running for the camp. Tony follows, stealing a gun from the first knocked-out soldier that he sees.

He loses Rogers for a little bit in between freeing the rest of the prisoners and helping to blow the camp up, but then Rogers comes to find them with a different soldier in tow. Sentinel Bucky Barnes is trying to be calm, but Tony looks past the mask and sees the way he's about two seconds away from a bad reaction. Experimentation, the other prisoners said, not looking at Barnes. Experimentation that no one came back from.

Tony's not stupid. He doesn't touch Barnes, not even to settle him, because he might be a guide but that's just asking for a full-on rage. It happens when they've stopped that night and Tony is climbing down from the tank. He goes to jump and lands in mud, and Barnes grabs the back of his shirt before he can go sprawling and Rogers grabs Tony's wrist. Fingertips brush the back of Tony's neck at the same time a different set of fingers wrap around his wrist, and he feels the contact like it's lighting him up from the inside out. This time the shiver definitely gets to his brain, and he thinks he cries out.

Someone gets a hand over his mouth and Tony gets the sense that he's moving - they're moving - but he's more preoccupied with, oh god, with the animals at their feet. Spirit animals, and he wants to laugh or maybe cry. The pure white fox with the steely eyes has to belong to Barnes, and perched over them in the tree is an eagle that has to be Rogers. That means the sleek black cat is his, though he's not sure what kind it is. It's a little smaller than the fox, but has sharp claws.

Triad bond. Tony's heard of them once or twice, but they're rare and even rarer between three men. This will definitely make Howard hate him if it gets out. He's not sure if he cares.

He comes back to himself to find that they're in a clearing. Rogers is sitting beside him while Barnes stalks around the edge of the clearing, the white fox keeping perfect pace with him. 

"What was that?" Barnes bites out.

"I have a headache. Could you keep your voice down?" Tony says before he can think to bite the words back, because he does. There's too much swarming over him, threatening to drown him cold, and they're both just so _strong_. He has no idea how he's meant to tether not just one, but both.

"Okay," Rogers says before Barnes can respond, shooting Barnes a look that Tony can't read. "Let's not do this here, alright?"

Tony hears that as 'let's not do this anywhere' and it makes him ache inside. Howard's always told him that he'll never be the kind of guide anyone really wants. But he's seeing proof of it now, in not just one but two sentinels rejecting him, and he knows immediately that this will never be anything but a business relationship. He'll keep Barnes and Rogers grounded, and in return their strength will boost his own shields so that he doesn't want to claw his brain out the way he frequently does now, but that's it. The romantic, or even platonic, ideal of the sentinel-guide relationship will never come to fruition.

Fine.

He says as much, somehow managing to get to his feet, even though he's weak enough that he sways when he stands. The bond is there, an unfamiliar pressure in the back of his head, and it's throwing him off-kilter. "It's almost daylight," he says. "We should move out.

Both Rogers and Barnes frown, but Tony ignores their stares and staggers back to the camp. He winds up spending most of the day on the tank because he's not sure he could walk more than half a mile without collapsing, trying to spin a triad into something that is functional. But it's like working with hot metal and his bare hands; it's painful, especially when he can feel Barnes as a prickly cactus and Rogers isn't much more friendly. They so clearly don't want this, and it's not something that Tony knows how to break without killing them all.

It's awkward enough, even after their successful return, that he is genuinely shocked when Rogers requests him to join the Howling Commandoes. In the wake of the burst of hope that lasts for approximately five seconds, he figures out pretty quickly that the invitation is because Barnes and Rogers need him close, just in case they zone in the middle of a fight. Tony can work with that.

He’s made a practice of being useful, even as a guide in Howard’s spotlight, and he sets himself to repairing the equipment for the Howling Commandoes. Pretty soon the whole team knows to bring him anything that’s broken or malfunctioning, or anything they liberate from a Hydra camp. Tony’s not trained to fight, but he watches the poor excuse for armor that some of the Commandoes wear and he pokes at some of the scraps and he wonders what, given the time and tools, he could create to solve that problem.

His sentinels don’t speak to him unless they have to. The team figures out pretty quickly that Tony is a guide for one of them, but no one ever asks him straight out which one and Tony doesn’t offer to explain. It’s so much easier for a guide when touch is involved, but he doesn’t try to reach out to either one of them. Ever. He keeps his distance and so do they.

It hurts, though, the first time the fox comes close enough for him to feel the fur on her tail. The eagle alights beside him, eyes too intelligent, and when Tony looks across the fire and sees that his cat is sprawled in the laps of an oblivious Barnes and Rogers, he has to bite his tongue to keep quiet. They're not bonded all the way, so they can't see the spirit animals the way Tony can. Maybe there's a blessing in that.

The worst of it all is that he actually, genuinely likes them both. Rogers can be sweet, but he's also sarcastic. He gives as good he gets, but Barnes can still make him blush - he's a damn smooth talker, enough so that Tony's heart has skipped more than one beat, eavesdropping on the two of them. They rotate around each other so smoothly, like a perfect whole, and there’s just no room for Tony in between them. 

Until the day that Barnes falls. Tony feels his fear and Rogers’s anguish, and it rattles him down to his core. He’s never felt loss like this before; he can’t catch his breath. He suddenly gets why a lot of guides and sentinels give up after their partners die.

Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to get on the plane behind Rogers. 

Rogers doesn’t even know he’s there at first; he’s too preoccupied with the Red Skull to realize that Tony jumped out of the car behind him. Until the Red Skull dies in a screaming flash of light and then the plane is going down, down, and Tony is terrified and Rogers is… resigned.

That’s when Rogers sees him, and his eyes widen in confusion. “Stark?”

Tony can’t breathe again, and the words come out as a jumbled stutter. “I w-will nev-ver forg-give you f-for th-this.”

Rogers mouths an oath, jumping up from the pilot’s chair. He crosses the space between them – he’s so much bigger than Tony now, and the memory of looking down into those blue eyes seems so far away – and grabs Tony, lifting him right off his feet. It’s the first time Tony’s been touched in such a long time and his skin thrums to life under the contact, burning until he wants to die.

Then they do.

\---

Waking up is hard. Tony hurts everywhere, alternating hot and cold, but that’s okay. Because when he opens his eyes, it’s – it’s the _future_ , and the world is both completely different and the same, and he has so much to catch up on that his brain is overwhelmed. The advancements in science alone are astonishing. 

Rogers stays asleep. The doctors tell Tony they don’t know when, or if, he’ll wake up. But then, they’re not even sure how Tony survived when he hasn’t had any exposure to the serum. They fuss a lot and run some tests and finally determine it has something to do with the guide-sentinel bond, and Tony can’t exactly deny that given that all of the video footage he’s seen confirms that he had to literally be pried out of Rogers’s arms with a prying bar. 

He lets them think what they want. 

Tony meets Howard’s son – Edward Stark – exactly one month after he wakes up. Edward, because he refuses to go by a nickname, is basically only the face of the company, since it takes Tony approximately five minutes to work out that Obadiah Stane is the one who’s really in control of Stark Industries. Edward seems more interested in partying and it gives Tony no amount of glee to imagine how Howard would’ve handled that.

But Howard will never know.

Stane doesn’t like Tony, but he also doesn’t want Tony to make trouble for them. And he could. Legally Howard left everything to Edward, but a good portion of that ‘everything’ wasn’t Howard’s to give. Tony could, if he wanted to, sue for the rights to the company. SHIELD provides Tony with lawyers, including a particularly sharp woman named Pepper Potts, and Tony walks away from the conversation with a check that has enough zeroes to make his head hurt.

Even in 2012, Tony has enough money to be considered rich. It’s daunting. He doesn’t really know what to do with it. That, plus trying to learn about the future, is enough to send him into culture shock a handful of times. He ends up beside Rogers’s bed every damn time, hugging himself and trying to remember how to breathe. 

It gets marginally better after Tony meets the other Avengers – or rather, the Avengers, because it’s pretty clear he’s not invited to be a member of the team, though Rogers is (or will be if he wakes up). It rankles, smacks of the opinion that guides are dainty flowers meant to be kept away from the frontlines, even though anyone you ask will swear backwards and forwards that it’s not like that anymore.

So he starts to plan. And design. He keeps it a secret, though he thinks Natasha might know. If she does, she just smiles and says nothing at all. She might be his favorite new person.

Rogers wakes up a full seven months after Tony, and – strangely, gratifyingly – the first word out of his mouth is, “Tony?!”

Tony’s not there to hear it of course, he’s in the SHIELD labs with Bruce, but he feels it. The bond pulses with fear and he spills chemicals all over the place. Before Bruce has the chance to ask him what’s wrong, Tony’s out of the room and running for the medical bay. He blows by Coulson, scrambles into the room, and gets a hand on the only skin he can see amongst all the doctors and nurses trying to calm Rogers down – a thick ankle.

The tension bleeds out of Rogers fast and he makes a choked sound. “Tony?”

“Rogers,” Tony says, non-committal, the sound of his name jarring loose a sharp piece of hope that he thought he’d long since buried. “You’re okay. You’re fine. These are friends. For the most part,” he adds, seeing Fury walk into the room, and Fury just gives him a deadpan look in response.

“Captain Rogers,” Fury says, turning back to Rogers. “Welcome back.”

Rogers – Steve, Tony’s trying to remember to call him that, after the looks he got that ranged from suspicion to outright curiosity when people heard him say otherwise – doesn’t adapt as quickly as Tony, but he gives it a damn good shot. Tony’s presence seems to help, maybe because Tony knows exactly how Rogers feels: like the whole damn world is going to drown him.

He’s felt that way twice now, so he can sympathize.

Six months after Rogers – Steve – wakes up, just over a year since Tony did, Loki and the Chitauri attack. 

Tony spends approximately twenty minutes sitting safely on the sidelines before he tests his armor out for the first time. The shock (and awe, Tony knows Clint was awed no matter what he says) is well-worth the late nights of learning until his head felt like it would explode. The armor works long enough to get that missile up in the portal where it belongs, before it craps out and he falls.

The Hulk catches him before he hits the ground. Tony jerks awake to the armor gone and the feeling of strong arms around him and that weird burn under his skin, and he knows before he opens his eyes that it’s Steve. 

“At least this time only one of us died,” Tony croaks.

Steve makes a sputtering sound, half laugh and half sob, and crushes him in a hug so tight it hurts. “Oh my god, Tony, don’t ever do that to me again. I lost Bucky. I can’t lose you too. The _emptiness_ where you were –” He cuts himself off, pressing his face to Tony’s hair. 

“I didn’t think you cared,” Tony says, dazed, and doesn’t even realize he’s spoken the words out loud until Steve noticeably tenses. The haunted look in Steve’s eyes is one that Tony’s never seen before, and for the first time since they woke up, the eagle lands beside Tony and makes angry bird sounds at him. Tony flops a limp hand in the eagle’s direction and shuts his eyes, willing to let Steve decide what happens next.

Steve decides that they all need medical attention; it turns out that Tony has two broken ribs, a concussion, and needs to be monitored because his heart stopped beating for approximately thirty seconds before Thor shocked him back to life. All in, not bad considering what happened. The worst casualty, as far as he’s concerned, is his armor, which is lying in dented parts somewhere in downtown New York after Steve ripped it apart to get at him.

But he gets an invitation to join the team out of it all, he considers it a win.

Clean up after New York is so slow. The whole team is tired and frustrated and wallowing in guilt. Thor and Bruce help out where they can, often with identical pinched expressions. Clint doesn’t talk to anyone. Steve doesn’t talk to Tony in particular, but he hovers a lot until Tony gets fed up and snaps at him. Natasha rolls her eyes and calls them both idiots. 

She doesn’t understand. Tony’s never wanted to be Barnes’s replacement. So it’s ironic, in a way, that it turns out Barnes doesn’t need a replacement because he’s still very much alive. 

Kind of.

It’s Tony who realizes it first, not Steve. It’s roughly three months after the Battle of New York. The team still isn’t functioning that well, though things have marginally improved. Not to the point where the Winter Soldier, as he’s called, isn’t kicking their collective asses, though. Tony deeply misses Thor, who returned home to Asgard not long ago, and kicks himself for not having the armor ready to go. He hangs back with Coulson and Bruce, watching as the Soldier somehow dodges every single one of Clint’s arrows, when he sees it.

The white fox.

It limps over towards him, beaten and battered, and Tony stands frozen until he feels the fur against his ankle. Automatically, he stoops to pick it up. He’s never held it before, not daring to cross that line with someone else’s spirit animal, but its fur is as soft as he imagined. The SHIELD agents around him look at him like he’s crazy for – to them – picking up thin air. Tony pays them no attention. His mind is whirling and coming to a pretty incredible explanation.

“Barnes,” he breathes, and before he knows it, he’s running. Coulson yells after him and it spreads like a wave, all these people shouting his name and running after him, but no one is close enough to stop him. He gets to the Winter Soldier – to _Barnes_ first. And up close, he can see it: those eyes that never failed to make his heart skip over itself.

“You asshole,” Tony says, breathless; he’s gotten closer to Barnes than anyone else has this far and he doesn’t know why because there’s no recognition in the way that Barnes is looking at him (he thinks it might be the fox and the way it's holding so still too), but he’s not going to waste this chance. He lets go of the fox and reaches out, keeps reaching even when Barnes suddenly jerks into movement and flinches away, and grabs onto Barnes’s face with both of his hands. 

“Tony!” Steve’s voice rises above the general outcry.

Tony shuts his eyes even though it increases the risk of a knife to his ribs and, mentally, clumsily throws himself at one of his sentinels. He wouldn’t be able to do this normally, especially when they’re not fully bonded yet, but Barnes is a fucking mess. His mind has no shields whatsoever; Hydra’s torn him apart and sloppily remade him so many times that it’s a wonder Barnes is still standing. 

Suddenly furious, Tony gropes for the familiar pressure at the back of his mind – the one that means _safety_ and _home_ no matter how much he tries to ignore it – and gives it a vicious wrench. Somewhere behind him, Steve goes quiet, and. in front of him, Barnes groans.

“Stay with me,” Tony says through gritted teeth. No wonder he and Steve didn’t recognize Barnes at first. It’s like seeing someone through a lens that’s badly distorted. 

He forces Barnes to calm down, taking the frantic, fearful energy into himself and sending back soothing waves. Barnes slumps, unsteady on his feet, but Tony can’t care about that right now.

There’s so much negativity, so much darkness, and it sickens him. Savagely, he claws as much of it away from Barnes as he can. He remembers how his sentinel used to be and he strives for that now, remembers teasing and protectiveness and kindness, even if it wasn’t necessarily directed at Tony. He remembers love between two sentinels, and he builds on that.

The fox chirps at him at one point, leaping up onto his shoulder, and the eagle’s talons dig in on his other shoulder. Their weight is negligible because they’re not really on this plane of existence, but the support still helps. From the eagle comes the determination to keep going; from the fox, he gets the overpowering desire to be free. And from the cat that leaps fearlessly up onto Barnes’s back, that stares him in the eyes, he gets the fear of being alone.

It hurts. He’s not trained for this. He’s not even sure if this is supposed to be possible. Tony falters briefly, knees going weak, and strong arms wrap around his waist from behind to hold him up. Steve. The touch of his - their -other sentinel makes the bond pulse, and Barnes lets out a weak groan.

Tony does guides do best. He builds shields, slinging them recklessly around Bucky’s mind until no one would be able to get through without destroying all three of them in the process. He recklessly tears away Hydra’s conditioning and instills the shields where that used to be. He can’t heal the damage they’ve done, but he can give Barnes the chance to come back from it with his mind somewhat intact.

His head aches so much he can barely see straight by the time he’s done what he can. His hands throb, and when he glances down his palms are crossed by bright red stripes, as though he’s been handling hot metal with no protective gloves. Barnes has fallen to his knees, face pressed to Tony’s stomach, arms wrapped around both him and Steve like they’re a lifeline.

Steve’s face is buried against the back of Tony’s neck, and Tony can dimly feel the warmth of tears.

Clint and Natasha are hanging back a bit with Coulson. Bruce is the one who approaches, hands held up in the air when Steve tenses. 

“Steve,” he says, keeping his voice calm, “I’m not trying to take your guide or Barnes, okay? But both of them need help.”

“I’m fine,” Tony says, or tries to say, because it comes out sounding like some terrible croak. He has no idea how long they’ve been standing here, but it has to have been ages because his throat is bone dry and the sun has set.

Bruce just gives him a look. “You look like you’re two seconds from passing out.”

“He’s right, man,” Clint calls out. Clint, the only other guide on the team. Coulson’s guide, not that you’d know it from how they interact. “That was some serious shit you just pulled.” He’s grinning. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I was mad,” Tony mutters, more to himself than to anyone else, because how _dare_ Hydra manipulate and brainwash one of his sentinels like that? The brief flashes of memory he got are enough to make him shiver, and once he starts he can’t stop.

“Yeah, okay. Steve, seriously, medical attention,” Bruce says, sounding even more concerned now.

Steve growls something into Tony’s neck but reluctantly releases the both of them. Barnes is unconscious and his arms have to be pried away from Tony, who immediately feels the loss and it aches somewhere deep inside. Bruce takes a step towards Tony, and Steve growls again.

“Steve,” Tony says, equal parts surprised and admonishing, and Steve has the grace to look a little guilty.

Bruce takes his arm gingerly, casting cautious looks at Steve, and leads him over to where the medics are waiting. They’re brisk and efficient, examining Tony quickly, and finally diagnose him as being overtaxed in combination with a serious case of bond withdrawal.

“Bond withdrawal?” Clint echoes, and he and Coulson both whip around to stare accusingly at Steve.

“I – what?” Steve says.

“You guys still haven’t bonded?” Clint demands. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

Against his will, Tony looks at Barnes. He sees understanding dawning on way too many faces and squirms out from under the hands of the medics, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Less talk, more flying. Let’s go,” he says, clapping his hands at them. “Barnes needs help. Get a move on!”

In the crowd, Clint sidles up to Tony. “Tony –”

“They didn’t want me,” Tony says shortly, not looking at him, not liking that he’s not strong enough to walk on his own and has to lean heavily on Clint for support. 

Clint tenses. “They didn’t want you?”

Tony sighs, half-wishing the ground would open up to swallow him, and looks ahead to where Steve is climbing into the back of the ambulance beside Barnes. “They were already… you know. Before I came along. I’m just a guide. Nothing else.”

“No guide is ‘just’ anything,” says Coulson, coming up on Tony’s other side and wrapping an arm around his waist to help. “And considering the way that both of them were holding onto you, I can safely say you three need to have a discussion. I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that you mean more than you think.”

“How much money?” Tony asks warily. He knows he has a lot of money, but he also knows that inflation has driven the price of everything up outrageously. 

Coulson just rolls his eyes. “Never mind. Come on, in you go.” He and Clint lever Tony up beside Steve. 

The transportation back to the helicarrier goes more smoothly than Tony expects. Barnes remains unconscious for most of it, and the medics give Tony something that makes him feel sleepy but which also makes his headache a little less agonizing. Steve keeps one hand one top of Barnes’s arm, but – in a move which shocks Tony to no end – puts the other arm around Tony’s shoulders and draws him in closer.

Tony kind of wants to protest it, because he doesn’t need this kind of gratitude for saving Barnes, but Steve is warm and their presence is making the bond pulse happily and he’s so tired. He ends up falling asleep instead.

He wakes up to the quiet murmur of voices. There’s a warm presence in the bed beside him, and he blinks slowly in confusion. Someone squeezes his hand. When he turns his head to the right, he sees that Steve is sitting in a chair beside his bed. A look to the other side reveals that Barnes is the one lying to his left, sharing the bed with him. Tony’s confusion must be evident, because Barnes smirks faintly.

“Apparently they don’t like splittin’ up guides and sentinels,” he says, the first words Tony’s heard him speak since he fell from the train. “These are special beds just for us. Maybe you can help me convince Stevie to join us.”

“Buck,” Steve chides. “I told you, you’re both wounded.”

“And I told you, I’m fine.”

“That’s not what the doctor said.”

Barnes rolls his eyes, then winces. “They also said no one’s ever done anything like that before, so that’s just a guess on their part.”

“An educated guess,” Steve points out.

“What?” Tony finally says, because he is completely lost. Both of them look at him.

“You erased most of Hydra’s brainwashing,” Barnes says, locking eyes with Tony. “I haven’t felt this clear-headed in ages. Some of it’s still there, but it’s far away. Like I’m looking at it through a glass wall and it can’t get to me. I’m even starting to remember things I’d forgotten. Things I never thought…” He trails off, shifting uncomfortably. “Thanks, Tony.”

“You’re welcome?” Tony says. It comes out as more of a question. He’s not really sure what’s going on here.

“Tony…” Steve trails off, a very familiar look on his face, and Tony groans.

“Can you not? I can’t deal with more of your silent, awkward hovering right now,” he complains.

Barnes snickers. “Awkward hovering?”

“It’s a thing,” Tony grumbles. He tries to sit up and immediately there’s two sets of restraining hands pushing him right back down again. He flops against the bed like a fish for a few seconds before giving up, because having two super soldiers for sentinels is patently unfair.

“Look,” Barnes says, “we might have given you the wrong impression. It’s not that we don’t want a guide. We – I never expected to find one. Much less one that would click with this punk too.” He nods at Steve. “It was a shock, but you were a dream come true for us.”

Tony slants him a look. “Oh really.”

“It was a war. We didn’t have time to woo you!”

“I didn’t need to be wooed,” Tony says, maybe a little too loudly. “Just some acknowledgement would’ve been fantastic!”

Barnes winces again. Steve looks like a kicked puppy. Tony scowls and folds his arms, trying his damndest not to feel guilty, but that’s easier said than done.

“Don’t force yourselves,” he says, calmer now. “I didn’t need it then and I don’t need it now. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m just the guide here. You guys had something way before I came along. I’m not going to push my way in.”

“Jesus,” Bucky says, sounding genuinely pained. “You’re not pushing your way in. We didn’t handle it well, okay? We – there was Hydra and everything else, and that’s not an excuse. We get that.”

“Tony, I’m sorry. I should have talked to you a long time ago,” says Steve. He slides off the chair, perching on the side of the bed instead, so that Tony is enclosed by the two of them. “You are not just a guide. You’re the only thing that has kept me sane since I woke up. Even before that. There have been times when I just wanted to – I want to _snap_. And I could feel it. Buck helped a little, but I was un-tethered. Until you. And now…” He makes a strange motion with his hands, and Tony raises an eyebrow.

“And now?” he prompts.

“You saved my life,” says Barnes. “You’ve kept Steve alive too. If you left us, we’d fall apart. As it is, we have about seventy years to make up for.” He sounds so matter-of-fact about it.

“I wouldn’t leave you, I’m just saying –”

Barnes kisses him first, full on the mouth, muffling the words Tony’s trying to get out. Tony barely gets a chance to breathe before Steve kisses him too, sweeter but more desperate, like he’s been holding this kiss back for years. Maybe he has. They kiss and kiss and kiss until Tony forgets who is touching him, who’s hands are on his skin, he just knows that he’s waited for this for so long –

Somehow Steve ends up on the bed with them. Tony is both too tired and in too much pain to prompt anything more sexy than a handful of lazy kisses, but he certainly enjoys watching Barnes and Steve kiss over him. It’s a throwback to those old days around the fire, when they were all huddling together and the two of them used to think they were being sneaky. Tony remembers aching to be between them instead of on the other side of the fire, and now he is.

“Barnes,” he says.

“Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Tony allows with a slight roll of his eyes. “Can you see that?”

“See…” Barnes – Bucky trails off, and Steve makes a sputtering noise of shock.

Something warm fills Tony’s stomach, because he’s pretty sure they can see the fox and the cat and the eagle now. The eager is perching on the bed frame, wings folded, watching over them protectively. The fox slinks up the bed, brushes past Steve and curls up in Tony’s lap, while the cat sprawls across the bottom of the bed with a luxurious stretch, front paw on Bucky’s ankle and tail coiled loosely around Steve’s.

“This is your spirit animal,” Tony says, tangling a hand in the fox’s fur. It looks better now, though still far from the healthy animal he remembers. “You can see it now. That means we’re…” He can’t bring himself to say the word. He always thought bonding meant sex, because that’s what everyone said. Apparently everyone’s been lying for the past hundred-odd years.

“How long have you been able to see them?” Steve asks, a hint of wonder and something else in his voice, and Tony knows what he’s really asking.

“A while,” he says cagily, because he doesn’t want to go into it – it doesn’t matter what happened before the ice, or even after, as long as things keep being like this on the way forward. He wants them both and now they know that, but somehow that's become a good thing and he can't bear to lose it now.

Steve looks at him with a faint frown, like he knows more than Tony is letting on – not that it’s hard to figure out, since Tony recognized the fox first and Bucky later – but is apparently willing to drop the matter, because he just presses a kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth. “They’re beautiful.”

“Sap,” Tony says, teasing.

“He’s calling it like he sees it,” says Bucky, but he’s looking down at the cat and smiling as he says it. Tony tries not to blush, hates the fact that he can feel his cheeks going warm anyway at the idea that his sentinels think his spirit animal is beautiful, and ends up burying his face in Bucky's side. A metal hand cups the back of his head, rubbing gently, and Steve's hand curls protectively over his hip.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://tsuki-chibi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
